ARTIFICIAL HELLS

artificial hells
all to exercise this against those who try and prevent its dictatorship, from
today onwards takes measures to quash their resistance.’ 116 Aragon described
these events as ‘a sort of intrusion of the moral domain into the people’s
private lives’, while Breton, in ‘Artificial Hells’, repeatedly refers to the
events of the Dada Season as a ‘discussion on moral grounds’, and hints that
Paris Dada is coming to an end and that it would not be surprising to find the
group ‘in art, philosophy or politics’. 117
The Barrès Trial marks a turning point in Dada performance and a step
towards Surrealism, with the ascendency of Breton’s intellectualised
approach over the anarchic provocations of Picabia and Tzara. Picabia left
the hall theatrically before the end of the trial, while Tzara did his best to
spread disorder: during the event he claimed to have no interest in Barrès
whatsoever, and referred to him as ‘the biggest pig of the century’ – like
Breton, Fraenkel, Aragon and the rest of his colleagues. 118 For Hugnet, the
most significant shift in this regard was the fact that Dada now presumed to
judge rather than simply to negate; in other words, it attempted to find a
position rather than offering an a priori rejection of all positions. 119
Ribemont- Dessaignes similarly observed that ‘Dada itself was no longer
on the scene. Dada could be a criminal, or coward, a destroyer or a thief,
but not a judge. The first indictment left us morose, with an unpleasant
taste in our mouths.’ 120 Rather than a space of nonsensical chaos, then, the
Barrès Trial presented a conflicted parody of the courtroom as a formal
space for debate, ultimately revolving less around political than moral criteria:
the betrayal of switching allegiance, which applied not only to Barrès
but perhaps also to Breton himself, in shifting Dada’s focus away from
anarchic negation to more clearly articulated judgements of denunciation.
As Richter notes, after the Barrès trial, ‘Not much remained of . . . the anti,
which had been Dada’s original moral credo.’ 121 In short, morality was
making inroads, informed by Breton’s nascent allegiance to Marx and
Freud, both of whom offered their own accounts of freedom.
IV. Cohesion and Disruption
These ‘artificial hells’ across the political spectrum begin to expose some
of the contradictions between intention and reception, agency and manipulation,
that will become central problems in the contemporary discourse
of participation. It is telling that a full spectrum of ideological positions
are already represented in its diverse points of origin. Futurism (and
later, Dada cabaret) created situations in which the audience were mobilised
to participate in an orgy of hostility towards Futurist artists and
poets engaged in a political mission of pro- war militaristic nationalism.
Perversely, such an attack on the performers stood not as a failure but as
a mark of success, an indicator of the public’s active readiness towards
accepting the artists’ goals. That audiences were not only ready for but
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